Harvey Weinstein ’s ex-PA today told how she was pressured into signing a non-disclosure agreement that was “morally lacking on every level”.

Giving evidence to an inquiry on sexual harassment, Zelda Perkins told MPs on the Women and Equalities Committee: “There cannot be a legal document that protects criminal behaviour.

She told MPs she quit after the disgraced movie tycoon “sexually assaulted and attempted to rape a colleague of mine”.

The victim had “recently been employed and had only met him once”, Zelda Perkins told the Women and Equalities Committee in Parliament.

Giving evidence to an inquiry on sexual harassment, she told MPs: “When somebody comes to you and says that has happened there is not much choice about what you should do.”

Harvey Weinstein's former PA Zelda Perkins

She also said she was “defrauded” by the non-disclosure agreement she signed when she left his company Miramax after alleging he attempted to rape a colleague.

Ms Perkins, who left the company in 1998, told MPs she listed obligations in the agreement that she believed would restrict Weinstein’s allegedly predatory behaviour.

She told the committee: “I was unhappy with the entire process and the entire agreement and the only part of the agreement, the only thing I could do, the only arsenal I had, was trying to make the agreement restrictive to his behaviour, as restrictive as it was to our non-disclosure.”

Asked why she signed it if she was unhappy, she added: “I believed we had done the best we could in terms of stopping his behaviour. Essentially we were defrauded. We signed that agreement with the belief that Miramax and Harvey Weinstein would uphold their obligations.”

Ms Perkins says she was pressured to sign a non-disclosure agreement

Disgraced Weinstein is accused of rape and sexual assault, which he denies (Image: WENN.com)

Ms Perkins said she had asked that Weinstein go to therapy and for “a human resources system to be brought into the company with three complaint handlers, one of whom had to be an attorney because I hoped that meant they couldn’t lie”.

She said: “If a damages claim was sought in the following two years this would either be disclosed to Disney or they would fire Harvey from the company.”

She said they had the right to check if this was being enforced for the following three years but Ms Perkins said she did not.

She told MPs: “I did for about 12 months afterwards but the whole process was so demoralising.

“I would have thought they would have bent over backwards to have upheld their obligations.”

Ms Perkins gave evidence to Parliament's Women and Equalities Committee

In the first oral evidence session on sexual harassment in the workplace and the use of non-disclosure agreements, Perkins she was advised by lawyers that the women would be “utterly crushed” if they attempted to take legal action against Weinstein, adding they were advised it “wasn’t worth considering because of the disparity of power between myself and Weinstein and Disney (the parent company of Miramax).”

Detailing the three days of intense negotiations with Weinstein’s lawyers Allen & Overy, she said the NDA was a “morally lacking agreement on every level”, adding there were clauses that precluded her from speaking to colleagues, friends and family about what happened but also obligated her to get medical practitioners and lawyers to sign agreements before she could speak to them about what had happened.

She told MPs: “We were still under pressure to not name anybody.

She said a colleague was sexually assaulted by Weinstein

Ms Perkins said her former colleague, who was the victim of the alleged assault, sought counselling but never spoke about the incident because “she was so afraid of this agreement she felt she was not allowed to”.

She told MPs that she believed breaking the agreement, which she was never given a copy of, would result in jail time.

She added: “I was told clearly it was a very broad agreement and basically I just couldn’t ever say anything about anything to anybody and just the safest thing was to erase the entire last four years of my life pretty much from my memory.

“At no point was it made clear to me that it was unenforceable or could potentially be unenforceable.”

Recalling a 12-hour session with Weinstein’s lawyers that went on until 5am, she said: “It was a reasonable environment up to a certain point but what was unreasonable about it was the pressure we were put under collectively.

“I felt my lawyer was put under a huge amount of pressure, with me and apart from me.

“It was a siege mentality, you lose track of time and place, you’re in a battle.”

Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual assault and harassment by multiple women, has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.